Skyggebilleder af Frederik Schaldemose. Kjöbenhavn, 1829.

MR. SCHALDEMOSE has been long advantageously known as the author of se veral works, in verse and prose. In the work before us he has furnished a new collection of poems, under the title Phantoms, consisting of fables, lyrical pieces and sketches, and of the poem the Jomsvikings, The chief merit of this author consists in a style at once simple and interesting; but the great variety of subjects chosen for the Skyggebilleder, would seem to have prevented his giving auy marked character to these productions of his muse. In the Jomsvikings he takes a more determined course, and one which we could wish to see him follow in his future productions. The work is inscribed to the Princess Royal, Carolina, in a dedication called the Sacrifice,' which is very beautifully written.

Digtninger af Christian Wilster. Kjöbenhavn.

WE, in a former number, took occasion to mention the poems of Mr. Winther, and we now have to announce those of an author, much resembling him in style and poetic tendency. Beauty and elegance of diction, and a pure and earnest spirit, distinguish the productions of both. In the collection before us we would direct attention to the pieces, When I was great,' written with reference to Baggesen's celebrated song, When I was little; Where art thou?' addressed to the ideal of the bard; and The Prayer of the Childless Mother.'

Pamientniki Janezara, Warschau, 1829.

WHEN Ladislaus III., having been absolved by the Pope from his oath that he would continue on terms of peace with the Turks, surprised them in 1444, and in the battle of Warna was slain, together with the flower of his people, a young nobleman, among many more noble Poles, was taken prisoner by the Turks, assumed the turban to save himself from slavery, and entered the ranks of the Janizaries. The above work contains his journal during the siege and taking of Constantinople. It details many interesting facts. Although these memoirs do not throw any considerable light upon the history of that period, yet they are remarkable as a monument of the lingua vernacula of the fifteenth century, when in Poland all writers made use only of the Latin language. The author did not stay long in Turkey, returning to his native country after the conclusion of peace. The editor of the manuscript has retained the antiquated orthography and language of the author, but with a modern translation of the text on the opposite page.

Fetaway Abdur-Rahim. Constantinople, Nov. 1821. 2 vols. Folio. THE history of printing at Constantinople is rather singular. The first press was established by Jews, who published only new editions of old Hebrew works. Greeks and Armenians soon followed their example. In 1720, when MohamedEffendi was sent to Paris as ambassador, he was accompanied by his son Said, and resided seven years in the capital of France. He visited manufactories, &c., but there was nothing that interested him more strongly than the operations of the press. After his return to Constantinople, the Sultan gave him leave to erect this wonderful machine, and to print several books. The principal of these were vocabularies, grammars, travels, and historical works. There exists a work on America, printed by him, which, in spite of the prohibition of the Koran, is ornamented with prints. The latest work that has issued from the Turkish press, is a justification of the innovations attempted by the present Sultan, by whose command it was printed. It is entitled The ground pillar of victory. Its contents are calculated to recommend the reforms of the monarch to the people, and to represent them as ordinances of the Prophet. The Fetwas of Abdur-Rahim are nothing else than specimens of Turkish jurisprudence. They

contain

contain a collection of sentences by the celebrated Mufti, or Sheik Ulisbam (chief of the elect), whose proper name was Mentish Fadeh Abdur-Rahim Effendi. He was a long time chief justice of the east, and died in 1717. The present collection is divided into 944 sections, and contains about 20,000 Fetwas, mostly in questions and answers.

Parallèle du Christianisme et du Rationalisme sous le rapport dogmatique. Par J. Tissot. Paris, 1829.

THE theologies of mere reason are here brought into comparison with that of Christianity, and the coincidences pointed out, though rather sparingly, and with but a scanty knowledge of the heathen philosophies. The author is a good deal more copious on their points of difference, in other words, on the errors of Rationalism. To unaided reason, he opposes reason improved and enlightened by Christianity; but reason still,-reason against itself—the butterfly against the caterpillar. We have here, however, far more than the title promises; not only comparison, but argument. M. Tissot cannot compare without a preference; and, either with the loquacity of his countrymen, or according to the custom of philosophers, he cannot prefer, without rendering a reason. So reason we have in abundance. The points on which the comparison is instituted are the nature of the first cause, the attributes of the Deity, the creation of the world, the immortality of the soul, and future punishments, with other divergent doctrines, such as those of Providence, Purgatory, a Good and Evil Principle, &c. We are not aware, however, that there is any novelty in the views of M. Tissot on any one point of the comparison. His merit is that of an able redacteur,who has brought into one treatise the whole matter of his subject already prepared to his hand, and displayed it in his own manner clearly, concisely, and completely. This work, indeed, is somewhat ostentatiously argumentative; but while the argument is convincing, we are not much disposed to quarrel with any singularities in the manner. It has, throughout, one other claim to respect, which every reader will acknowledge, and that is, the laudable ambition of the author to do a service to revealed religion, at the utmost stretch of his abilities.

The topics, as we have said, are all very trite; and, perhaps, the reader could very well dispense with even the most summary allusion to them.

The first remarkable thing in the Pagan theologies is, that in none of them do we find the doctrine of God having created the world out of nothing; he is only conceived to have organized it out of chaos, which preceded all intelligence. Even the immortality of the gods was disputed by the most enlightened. They were not immortal by their own natures, said the Epicureans, but they became so by attaining, after a long course of experience, to a knowledge of the means of self-preservation. Probably the author of Political Justice had this precedent in view, when he ventured to predict an immortality to men even in the present life.

6

It is certain that the attribute of immutability was taught by Plato and his disciples; that of infinity by Socrates, and a hundred besides. But the unity of the Deity was recognized somewhat equivocally by the ancients, many being of opinion that all before the era of Christianity were polytheists, except the

Hebrews.

The cosmogonies of the ancients were extremely capricious, as they behoved to be, while the fundamental ideas of Deity and matter were unsettled. Sometimes the Creator was a presiding intelligence; sometimes an innate faculty in matter: file, water, air, and chance, each had its turn of divinity. The world was a machine self-constituted, a vegetable, an intelligent animal without liberty, a fiery horse impatient of the reins. And how were organized bodies informed with life, and occupied by intelligent souls? Pythagoras represented

the

the process amusingly: he described the souls of men quitting their primal habitations in the skies, gliding along the zodiac in the space betwixt Cancer and Capricorn, descending to the earth like meteors, and lodging in mortal bodies. All these phantasms are here well contrasted with the simple theology of Revelation.

The immortality of the soul was admitted by Pythagoras and Plato, and by many of inferior note, by the Indians, Egyptians, Germans, and Gauls; the latter sometimes lending money, on condition of its repayment in the other world. How has this sublime faith declined in the money-markets of modern times!

M. Tissot observes, that all the punishments in a future state were, in the Pagan theologies, little more than the mere negation of enjoyment, the pain only of simple ennui. What then is his interpretation of the wheel of Ixion, the thirst of Tantalus, and many other of their fables? The whole scheme of future retribution was no doubt with the ancients a work of pure, but not unmeaning, imagination; and, if it be the genius of fiction, as critics maintain, to throw a veil over physical agonies, or to reject them altogether, the remark of M. Tissot ought to be correct. It is certain, indeed, that the Greeks and Romans indulged far more in fancying the future recompense of virtue, than the punishments of vice.

M. Tissot goes through the whole drudgery of the parallel most conscientiously. Quae desperes tractata nitescere posse, relinquas,' is not one of his rules. The oddest phantoms of heathen superstition he sallies forth to combat as in duty bound, and with a Quixotic solemnity; and after dispatching them with a thousand strokes, he never fails to submit them deliberately to a process of comparative anatomy. Witness his treatment of the foolish old fashions of apotheosis and canonizing. Their entire unreasonableness is demonstrated by many a sober syllogism. If the heathens really believed the souls of men immortal, how could they pretend to know like the gods, what individuals were worthy of being deified; and how could any just man countenance an apotheosis of himself, which he knew to be a deception on his race? This reasoning of M. Tissot is undeniably sound; and yet it is perfectly decisive of the feebleness of his understanding. That other harmless fancy of the Epicureans, that the gods enjoy a state of endless repose, has not escaped his inexorable logic. To enjoy repose implies a previous sensation of fatigue; but fatigue can only be the result of exercising the bodily organs,-while the gods are only of pure intelligence, and have no incumbrance of bodies at all: ergo, the gods can neither feel fatigue, nor enjoy repose. Q. E. D!

The best part of the parallel is unquestionably that which refutes the ancient and modern doctrines of Pantheism. Spinoza's Absolute Being was neither pure intelligence, ror extension, but a being of which these were the attributes. Then, says M. Tissot, this Absolute Being is a mere abstraction, and can, therefore, be no proper foundation for a system of cosmogony.

This book, on the whole, falls very far short of what we could have wished for, on such a spacious and momentous subject. An extensive acquaintance with the philosophies of the ancients-a just appreciation of those parts of them which are essentially consonant, or essentially at variance with revealed religion, -a candid abasement of reason to the mysteries of taith,-a comparison, in short, either more profoundly conducted, or with less dialectic formality,-these are desiderata in such an undertaking as this; and we look for them in vain in the work of M. Tissot.

Mélanges de Littérature et de Politique. Par Mons. Benjamin Constant. 1 vol. 8vo. Paris, 1829.

THIS work is to be regarded as only a relaxation from the graver duties of M. B. Constant, and as such, is highly creditable to him. In the 'Mélanges' a few pages

pages are devoted by the author to an eulogium on the universally admitted merits of Mad. de Staël. This celebrated woman, gifted with the most brilliant talents and a masculine energy of character, shed lustre on the literature of her country, and, indeed, of all Europe; and by her undaunted spirit amid the turmoil of revolution, and under the severest personal trials, formed her faith in that moral and political creed, which she so eloquently preached to others. We fully coincide with M. Constant in his denunciation of the petty policy adopted by Napoleon towards this distinguished woman-distinguished by a genius greater, and a patriotism far purer than his own. But his power

6

for evil has passed away, while hers for good remains, and must remain in the immortal works for which she suffered, and which she left, a legacy of love,' to France and to the world.

'Corinne' and Les Considérations sur la Révolution Française,' are the works which M. Constant conceives to be the most imperishable monuments of the mental glory of de Staël. With Corinne' all readers are well acquainted— all have felt and eulogized the beauties in which it abounds. The 'Considérations sur la Révolution are less generally known, yet are they the strongest proofs of the all-comprehensive mind of the authoress. From this work M. Constant gives copious and judicious extracts, accompanied by enlightened commentaries, which want of space obliges us to pass over.

་

6

The philosophical opinions of M. B. Constant are advocated with earnestness and sincerity, and his arguments are of the most liberal. His political opinions are sometimes distinguished by that kind of liberality which hath a leaning all one way and hence he puts forth assertions-very liberal no doubt-which we will not require him to verify upon oath. For instance, the following: The English aristocracy,' he says, had never till our times proved itself the enemy of the people. Family bonds united it almost with the democracy, and it was, not rarely, found in the ranks of opposition. Now-a-days matters are altered. It is evidently a remnant of feudalism which is falling, and which must give rise to a new state of things.' This palpable nonsense may be left to itself; as the diurnals write, comment is superfluous.' M. Constant thinks that Europe suffered by the ministry of Pitt, because that statesman was more English than cosmopolitan. In the Utopia of the author there may be a corps de reserve of cosmopolitan ministers, and, without undervaluing them, we must say that the more English our ministers have been, the more have they done the state good service,' and ameliorated the condition of mankind at large.

From politics M. B. Constant proceeds to poetry, and bears testimony to the great merits of the literary men in Germany. It is not the least of triumphs achieved by those indefatigable labourers, that France herself-France, who had treated the Germans with unceasing levity and scorn-now acknowledges their superior and vast attainments. In the following passage we fully coincide, and with it conclude our notice on the Mélanges.'

Stationary minds may declare, as they will, that innovations corrupt the taste of the public. Public taste becomes not corrupted-it approves what is natural and true-it rejects what outrages truth, or departs from nature by exaggeration. The public has an instinct truly admirable, one which has already traced the necessary limits for reconciling order with liberty in political exigencies. This instinct labours, and succeeds, in placing religion in its proper sphere between incredulity and fanaticism, and it will succeed in influencing literature, and restraining the writer, without fettering him.'

Essai sur les Anciennes Assemblées Nationales de la Savoie et du Piémont, &c.

Par le C. G. dal Pozzo. Vol. I. Paris, 1829. 8vo. THIS is a valuable volume, full of critical knowledge and information on a subject scarcely never honestly inquired into. It is an important addition to the

political

political history of Italy during the middle ages, and necessary for any one who wishes to know what was the political state of Upper Italy before the times of Charles V., the sovereign whom the Italians ought to detest more than any other; for it is from him that the decline of the Peninsula has its date, and it is owing to his accursed bigotry and despotism, that the nation has been reduced to the deplorable political condition under which it at present groans. It is, moreover, a book possessing the great quality of being à propos, since it comes to show that no one acquainted with these matters can honestly say that Piedmont and Savoy were always a despotic government. This absurd and wicked thesis has been lately supported by a certain Count Napione di Coccinato, a man with great pretences to erudition, and a still greater degree of court adulation and jesuitical gloss about him. He, the keeper of the royal archives in Piedmont, has given us to understand that the Etats Généraux of Piedmont were nothing but insignificant meetings of persons, very humbly petitioning the sovereign, who might entirely and without any difficulty reject their addresses. This noble writer thought, perhaps, that history could not be studied out of the Piedmontese archives, when he tried to pass off such a wilful and unworthy perversion of facts. But wherever men exist who have paid any attention to the subject, they all are found to agree that the governments of the middle ages, throughout Europe, were as far from being despotic as Count Napione is from being a candid author and a learned critic, although he may be believed to be both where his nonsense about the importance of the Etats-Généraux du Piémont is taken for sterling gold.

We are greatly indebted to the author of the little Essai at the head of this notice, for his clever and unanswerable exposition of Napione's bad faith, as well as for his gentlemanly manner in giving it. We, indeed, can more admire than imitate his temper; for though we can behave mildly to writers concerning opinions, the wilful perversion of facts by historians, who affect such hypocritical veneration for truth, makes our very blood boil. Count dal Pozzo has with great patience collected from authentic documents abundant proofs that the Etats Généraux in Piedmont were, as nearly as possible, like all other political assemblies of the same age. He has shown whence it comes to pass that it is so difficult to collect evidence of this fact, and has given a general importance to his work by proving in what manner the liberties of the country of which he speaks have been annihilated. It must, moreover, be of interest for his countrymen, and it is not without some for ourselves, to remark the way in which a rebellion of the nobility in Savoy, about the middle of the fifteenth century, was at length settled to the satisfaction of all parties concerned. The rebels, who had been condemned, were recalled, their estates were restored to them, and all party dissensions were for ever buried in oblivion; in consequence of which, the issue rendered the state more firm and powerful than it was before the explosion. This conduct of the then sovereign certainly forms a strong contrast with that of the present Piedmontese government. But in those days men of a more patriotic mind were at the helm of the affairs. The real service of their sovereign was what the ministers had most at heart, and the treacherous and wily councils of a rival power, like the Austrian, whose interests are the very reverse of those of Piedmont, were not listened to, as they are at present by the Cabinet of Turin. Now the advisers of his Sardinian Majesty play the game of Prince Metternich, betraying their trust and their country, and persecuting their fellow-citizens, to please a foreign tyrant. But if the fruit of misgovernment fall on the nation, the disgrace does not fail to attend the name of the Piedmontese administration, which has misgoverned that country from 1821 to our own days.

We shall for the present take leave of the book before us, strongly encouraging the author to pursue his useful and praiseworthy labours. We purpose

to